


Plums, pies and sketch

by lunaemoth



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Darcyland Secret Santa 2016, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Meet-Cute, Pre-Relationship, Secret Admirer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-25 02:30:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12026217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaemoth/pseuds/lunaemoth
Summary: In an Alternate Universe after Age of Ultron, everyone is happy and works for the Avengers Initiative. The problem? Someone is stealing Darcy's pastries.





	Plums, pies and sketch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ibelieveinturtles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ibelieveinturtles/gifts).



> I made this for DarcyLand's SecretSanta 2016 but never published it on AO3. I had left it in my drafts, and I found it again while cleaning up. I decided to publish it after some edits.
> 
> NB: I'm French, english isn't my first language and this isn't betaed so you can expect some mistakes. If anything bother you, please send me a nice comment with the correction.
> 
> You can find me on lunaemoth.tumblr.com

The noticeboard in the hallway of the Avengers Headquarters was part digital, part cork; probably because they were supposed to be modern, but there were some people, like Darcy, who were just too lazy and preferred to pin a quickly written note rather than bother with the ads software.

“There you go,” she said as she put her ad in a good place. She reread it one last time to make sure she hadn’t forgotten anything: “ _ Tall and broody food thief with one metal arm looking for a haircut and a lesson in good manners. Contact Training Team. _ ” With a Cheshire cat grin, Darcy pat the board, quite satisfied with herself. 

She was going to leave when a drawing caught her attention. It was a sketch of a feminine dancer with long brown hair doing some kind of pirouette. Under the drawing, a few lines were handwritten: “ _ To the lady dancing in the patio of the sciences building friday night at ten o’clock, that was a lovely performance. Thank you. _ ”

Darcy squeaked. She quickly looked around to check that no-one was paying attention to her, grabbed the paper, pulled it off the board and ran away with it. 

By Frigga the All-mother, this was embarrassing. She couldn’t believe someone had seen her! Only the crazy scientists she had to take care of were there at that hour usually, especially since they were getting closer to the holidays.

It’s not like she was ashamed, because dancing while decorating a Christmas tree was just tradition, and the one in the patio was pretty big, with lots of space around so of course she had to take advantage of it, but, well, she hoped that anyone having seen her didn’t think she was  _ too  _ weird...

Once she was alone in the break room where she prepared tea and coffee, she looked over the note more closely. The drawing was beautiful and the handwriting was nice: a little big, a little slanted, a little round, perfectly legible. On top of that, they were complimenting her… It had been years since she hadn’t trained, but it was nice to know that years of dancing lessons hadn’t been completely wasted. 

She smoothed out the paper carefully. She was going to keep it. 

 

oOo

 

The next day, Helen Cho barged in the break room where Darcy was making coffee and quickly looked around to make sure they were alone before leaning over the table to whisper: “I can’t believe you did it!”

“Did what?” Darcy asked with a raised eyebrow. 

“The note on the board!”

“Oh, that. I told you I would.”

“I thought you were kidding! Darcy, if he sees it, I’m not sure he’ll be amused.”

“Bah! First, there is no way he’ll see it. That guy is a loner, I bet he doesn’t care about mundane things like the notice board, and those who’ll see the note and understand won’t have the guts to tell him. Second, even if he sees it, so what? He’ll glower at me a little more than usual and steal all the pies? He already does!”

“Darcy, it happened twice and he didn’t steal it. He took the last dessert because he was before you in the canteen’s queue,” Helen said rationally.

“He did it  _ on purpose _ ,” Darcy hissed. “The first time, alright, maybe, I let it pass, but the second time? He noticed me, he looked at me, right in the eye, and I know that he knew that I wanted that plum pie, alright? But he was still staring at me when he put that pie on his tray! The asshole did it on purpose. He was taunting me!” 

The assistant arranged several cups on a tray and lift it with the ease of habit. Helen followed her toward the labs.

“Still, Darcy. Is it a really good idea to mock him? He isn’t an easygoing man.”

“Yeah, you can even say that he’s a broody dude,” Darcy agreed as she stepped in Jane’s private office. “It’s nice of you to worry for me, Helen, but I’ll be fine. Seriously, he won’t notice it.”

“Notice what?” Jane asked without looking away from her laptop. 

“The note on the notice board,” Helen said to her colleague, “about the  _ food thief _ .”

Jane glanced at her assistant. “You didn’t.”

“She did,” Helen confirmed.

Jane sighed and shook her head. “This is going to end badly.”

“No, it won’t,” Darcy said firmly as she gave her boss her coffee. “I’m being passive aggressive and chose the least risky revenge I could find. Believe me, I thought this through.”

“You should just let it go, Darcy,” Helen groaned.

“No way. I’m not letting the food thief walk all over me without consequences.”

“You have too much free time,” Jane decided, “clearly you’ve been thinking about this for too long. Here.” She gathered several papers and handed them over to Darcy.

“I don’t need to think to do paperwork,” Darcy grumbled but went to work anyway, pushing away the Christmas tinsel encroaching upon her space.

“She gets obsessive over the strangest things,” Jane confided to her colleague in a tone that wasn’t as low as she thought.

“Food and music aren’t strange things, they are the essence of life, Jane!”

“What about ecology, social justice and kittens?”

“Well… the first two are a professional quirk from my political sciences degree and kittens… well... it’s not only kittens anyway, any baby mammal is cute!” Knowing she had lost the battle, Darcy cleared her throat and focused on her work. “Anyway… Papers…”

 

Two hours later, Darcy was alone in the office. Jane had left to conduct some experiment with Erik. With her earphones on, Darcy focused on completing the requisition form for new equipment.

Something was slammed down on the table beside her. She startled violently, removing her earphones and pulling away from the new arrival in the same move. “What the fuck—” 

Shit.

The food thief.

The food thief was right here and glaring at her. “This is yours.”

“Uh?” She glanced at the note which had been left on the table and recognized, without surprise but a little dread, the one she had left on the board. She feigned not to know it nonetheless and leaned forward to pretend to read it. “Sorry, but I’m a dreadful hairdresser and your manners are beyond my abilities,” she stated.

He glared at her some more before he breathed in deeply. His shoulders and body language relaxed on the exhale. “I know you wrote it. Here…” He showed a carton box that he had been carrying and that Darcy hadn’t noticed, too focused on all the impressive muscles she had thought threatening a few seconds ago.

Darcy glanced warily at the box left before her on the table. It looked like a bakery box. Was it a trap? “What is it?”

“I’m sorry I took the last pie and apparently offended you terribly. I just wanted some plums and they didn’t have any fresh ones anymore. This is a replacement in apology.”

Darcy went wide-eyed and carefully opened the box to check. “You bought me a plum pie… from a bakery.”

“Yes.”

She glanced at him, incredulous, before coming back to the beautiful pie waiting for her. She tilted her head and squinted. “Is it trapped? Did you put something else in it?”

He snorted. “No. It’s just a plum pie.”

Tentatively, Darcy reached for the pastry and lifted it to her mouth to taste it. Better to know now and be able to strangle him than to let this go to waste. The first bite was sweet, fruity and just perfect. Darcy hummed in pleasure and put down the pie. After savoring her bite and swallowing it slowly, she looked back to James Barnes and said solemnly: “Alright, you’re forgiven.”

He smiled! The first smile she had ever seen from him, and it was a pleased lopsided smile, really charming. “I’m glad. No more passive aggressive note then?”

“Nope. We’re good. I like a man who knows how to apologize. Just don’t steal my pastries anymore.”

He smiled more widely. “I think I can do that…. Darcy, right?”

“Yep, Darcy Lewis, administrative assistant to the scientists, that’s me,” she confirmed jovially. 

“James Barnes.”

“The Avengers’ trainer. I know. You’re pretty famous in the building. There aren't many people who can tell Captain America and Black Widow to move their asses with as much composure as you.”

He chuckled. “I suppose.”

“Is it because of them you’re always gloomy? Man, if they’re such bad students you shouldn’t allow them desserts,” she said just before taking another bite of pie.

He smirked. “Is that your solution to everything? Food?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Coffee, herbal tea, alcohol and food solve many problems, in my experience.”

He smiled and turned away. “Alright then. See you later, Darcy.”

“Bye,” she said cheerfully with a wave. Once left alone, she hummed and savored her pie. “Maybe not such a bad guy after all…”

 

oOo 

 

Three days later, Darcy walked into the training facility, looking around curiously. She had never stepped into this building. While anyone could use the gym during certain hours, she felt too self-conscious to work out anywhere near superhumans and soldiers. As such, she had no idea where to go.

“Excuse me,” she said to the first person she ran into, a gorgeous lady with blond hair. “I’m looking for James Barnes. Is he around?”

The woman, whose badge identified her as ‘Sharon’ (that’s all that Darcy could see), pointed her in the right direction.

Darcy knocked at an office’s door. When she was given permission to enter, she stuck her head inside to verify he was alone. “Hey, broody,” she greeted him gently.

He looked up from his computer and blinked at her. “Darcy?”

Darcy stepped in and showed the paper bag she was carrying. “I saw you yesterday, and you looked even more gloomy than usual so I decided to pay you back for the pie.”

Bucky accepted the bag and looked inside. “Plums?”

“You said you prefer them fresh right? It’s not the season but hey…” She raised her hands. “You do what you have to do to cheer people up.”

He looked at her in wonder. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Don’t you worry. Captain Awesome will be back right as rain.”

“How did you know…?”

Darcy shrugged. “I heard it from Jane who heard it from Tony, and I thought you were missing your best buddy. No shame in that, he’s a pretty irreplaceable guy.”

“Yeah…”

“And I bet he’s just like Jane, the type to get in a whole lot of trouble when you have your back turned.”

“Oh, yeah,” he agreed more emphatically. “That’s the problem.” 

Darcy nodded sympathetically. “I feel your pain, I do. Want to go to lunch together today? I’ll bring my smartphone, show you a few videos, it’ll keep your mind busy and bright.”

“I… I would like that.”

“Awesome. See you at twelve thirty sharp! Dibs on the desserts!” She announced, pointing at him before leaving.

It turned out that James was a pretty okay guy. He favored dogs, but he wasn’t one of those cats-hater so everything was fine. Finding puppy videos for his off days wasn’t a hardship. Some people thought her therapy was weird, but it worked! He definitely looked more cheerful nowadays. 

 

oOo

 

“It’s December thirty-first, at nine o’clock, and I’m stuck watching a what-you-call-it do its thing. That’s my life,” Darcy said to herself as she stared at a small screen with pretty lights and mysterious numbers. Spread over a table with her chin in her hand, she kicked her feet distractedly. “I’m such a good friend. ‘Go celebrate with your godly boyfriend that you haven’t seen in weeks,’ I said, ‘I can watch the doodad and text you the results as soon as it’s done,’ I said. ‘It’s no trouble, I didn’t have plans anyway,’ I said. God, that’s pathetic. I’m pathetic. I’m talking to myself on New Year’s Eve.” 

She groaned and let her face fall against the table. “Come on doohickey! Whenever you want! Preferably before the party in the lobby ends, so I can get more champagne and salvage the night.”

She glanced mournfully at the empty plate of hors d’oeuvres and the empty flute she had brought from the buffet. 

Many agents were on call today, like always, so The Avengers Initiative had organized a party on site so that everyone could celebrate nonetheless. It was going great. The music was awesome and the food was  _ really  _ good, like Tony Stark’s caterer good. Now Darcy just needed to be  _ there  _ and not _ here _ . 

“Seriously, why does Jane need to know right away? Can’t this wait till tomorrow?” Darcy whined, rolling on the table to stare at the ceiling. She sat up suddenly and looked for her phone. “Whatever. If I have to wait, at least I shall have fun!”

She jumped on her feet, adjusted her dress, put on her phone’s volume to the max and started her playlist. After pushing a few chairs out of the way, she had enough space to have fun and sway to the music. “ _ Just the two of us… we can make it if we try _ ,” she sang to the machine she was supervising.

_ “And I know YOU'll be the death of me, at least we'll both be numb,” _ she added a few minutes later, pointing at it as she rocked from side to side. 

She was in the middle of a spin when a persistent bip caught her attention. “You’re done?! Oh, sweet little doodadhickey, I’m not ever cursing your name ever again,” she crooned joyfully, shutting down the music before hastening to copy the appropriate data and text it to Jane. 

A noise coming from the labs’ door caught her attention. She turned around quickly. 

James Barnes and Steve Rogers were at the door.

James Barnes and Steve Rogers were staring at her with amusement.

“You saw everything, didn’t you?” She asked, resigned.

“Yep,” James confirmed. 

She pointed at him with a tilt of her head. “It’s not a free show, Barnes. That will cost you two pastries, at least.”

He laughed, his eyes sparkling with mirth. His friend threw him a surprised glance.

Darcy turned around to shut down everything as she asked: “What brought you here anyway?”

“I wanted to introduce you to Steve. Bruce said you were here. And then, the most entertaining coincidence happened...” James leaned on a table. 

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“... I didn’t know you dance.”

Once everything was shutting down, she left the lab and went to Jane’s office, where she had her own desk. “That has been known to happen.”

“Yeah? Like... in a patio, recently?”

Darcy squinted at him then glanced at Steve Rogers, who was standing by the door with his hands in his pockets and looked uneasy, like a kid caught doing something he shouldn’t have. He wasn’t looking at her but at her desk, or rather what she had pin above it: the sketch of her dancing. She followed his gaze and it clicked. “You’re the drawer?” She asked Steve, wide-eyed.

He looked at her and straightened. “Ah. I… well… yes.”

“Woah… Okay… That’s…” She adjusted her glasses on her nose, just to check that this wasn’t a weird dream. “...unexpected. But well, it’s a nice drawing.” She said awkwardly with a wave at the paper.

“Thanks. It’s… thanks to the model,” he replied just as self-consciously.

James laughed at them.

“Oh, shut up, you,” Darcy said at the same time as Steve protested with a “Bucky, that’s not helping.”

They exchanged a look.

“Anyway,” Darcy said suddenly, perking up. “I’m done here. Fancy escorting me back to the party, Captain?”

“It would be my pleasure, Miss Lewis, if only you call me by my first name.”

She caught the arm he was offering and smiled at him. “Deal.”

James still chuckled, but he caught up to them and walked on Darcy’s other side. “So, it turns out that my pastry girl is your dancing lady.”

“So, it turns out that your best friend is my broody pal,” Darcy said. “Do you know that he needs a puppy therapy when you’re away?” At Steve’s surprised glance, she nodded very seriously. “He does. I have made a selection and a slideshow, just for him.”

Steve sent a look over Darcy’s head at Bucky who smirked and mouthed: “Told you she was perfect for us.”


End file.
